Tidying and TV

The day began in our usual rhythm: I made coffees to go with a quiet Instagram/X start. I finished and published my blog post and checked in with the woman who was supposed to pick up the wall unit, though it seemed she had gone silent. Shaina came upstairs not long after, so I made her a latte while she settled in at the island to work. S was on his laptop as I rotated laundry and put the house back in order.

By mid-morning we all headed out to the hot tub. It was sitting at zero degrees, and the breeze had enough bite that our ears protested, but it still felt good to soak for a bit. Shaina soon returned to her work, pausing only long enough to scramble some eggs for brunch. S stepped away from his laptop long enough for a bowl of chili and a bun.

Early afternoon brought a shift: the sun broke through and the temperature climbed to plus two. S and I took Harley for a walk to the gate, where I hung the final Giving Tuesday decoupaged jar. Back inside, I vacuumed the main floor while Shaina tackled the piles and boxes in her room. Together we carried the club chair up from B’s room so we could haul it into town for her house. S and I tested the new back-seat dog cover; after deciding it was a keeper, he wiped away the areas of slobber and secured it in place.

Shaina wrapped up her tidying and changed her linens as we headed to town just before three. Once Shaina's room tidy was complete, she was off to Calgary. We dropped off the trash, carried the chair up to B’s reading room, stashed her frozen dog food from her step in the freezer, and loaded Cooper. A couple final stops—refilling the Origin’s growler and grabbing milk and eggs—and we headed back home.

S hit “big brown” and his laptop, then drifted off to sleep. I wrote today’s blog entry in the bedroom while rewatching the tail end of last night’s Abandoned episode I might have missed, then moved on to Owning Manhattan. When S woke up, he lit yet another fire and went back to work on his laptop.

When I finished the new season of OM, I made supper: S’s favourite combination of KD, taco meat, and tomatoes. The biggest pot was nearly wiped clean in one sitting. Afterwards, I went back to the smart TV and put on a movie called My Secret Santa. As the fire burned down, S headed outside to roll a bale for the horses with the cold snap expected to hit tonight. Back inside, he moved downstairs to watch hockey.

B arrived just before eight. Even though it was only –2, the wind had picked up sharply, cutting it to a bitter –11. Harley had torn her dew claw, B cleaned and checked it, then we used cornstarch to help stop the bleeding. She blanketed Bird and Jimmy—thankfully—because the temperature was already dropping fast by the time she and Cooper pulled away.

I began a new Simon Cowell series about creating a boy band, but then I changed my mind and watched Outlander until I fell asleep around 11:30 p.m.  S came upstairs from the TV room afterward. The temperature continued to drop.